


Dance for a Gift

by robinsintherain



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, High Chaos, someone please let corvo sleep and eat properly, this is basically stupid and angsty but. ehh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-08
Updated: 2016-10-08
Packaged: 2018-08-20 06:29:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8239348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robinsintherain/pseuds/robinsintherain
Summary: 'My gift to you,' the Outsider had said, and then, 'how you use it falls upon you.' It is a choice, and there is no choice. Nobody stops to ask him if he wants this. Nobody stops to wonder how far he can go before he breaks.





	

**Author's Note:**

> so I haven't written anything for... a lot of years... so I'm probably very rusty. Apologies for this probably pretentious drivel that comes complete with poor sentence structure (wow I really know how to sell my work...) Also I have nobody to beta stuff so feel free to yell at me if there are any glaring errors... (people don't seem to write that they don't own anything at the start of fics anymore. It's so weird? Regardless I don't).

In the city they curse Corvo Attano as a damn fool, and he thinks, _perhaps they are right._

In the Hound Pits Pub they call him an assassin, and, in the same breath, the _man of the hour._ Corvo would laugh, except his throat seems to have constricted and even the idea of sound makes him nauseous, like he’s about to choke on his own words.

He doesn’t speak, after that.

He wants to tell them that he is not a killer, except that Jessamine is dead, so perhaps he has no right to challenge the labels they have awarded him. Besides, if it will save Emily and atone for his failings, he will do whatever it takes. Become whatever they need him to be.

They take his lack of defiance as acceptance, _readiness,_ even, watch the red swath he carves out of the city and believe he is doing what he wishes. They delight in greedy, judgemental glances at the mark on the back of his hand, remind themselves that they are sheltering a heretic. Corvo is willing to ally himself with the Outsider, they tell themselves, Corvo is willing to give up his soul for the cause – for the void – and as such must be prepared to do _anything_. Perhaps he should correct them, he thinks, but he finds he no longer has the words.

Many of the loyalists comment on how he does not make a sound. _Like a dancer,_ Lydia claims. Up in the attic, tucked away out of sight, they do not hear the way he pleads in his sleep, in the same way they do not see how his dreams glow blue. It is helpful for them, Corvo suspects, to possess a weapon who does not argue. He has been sharpened, _honed_ , tapered to a fine point, and he does not need words to make the city that has taken Emily from him bleed. Without words, he a silent, effective killer. He has what he needs and does not make a sound. The mark _burns._

_My gift to you,_ the Outsider had said, and then, _how you use it falls upon you._ It is a choice, and there is no choice. Nobody stops to ask him if he wants this. Nobody stops to wonder how far he can go before he breaks.

_Dance for me,_ the Outsider had said, or, hadn’t, but that is what Corvo had heard and it is close enough. _Put on a show. Amuse me._ He is tired of dancing. Tired of dancing for the so-called _Loyalists._ Tired of dancing to the song of the runes that call to him in the dark and pull him further, _further_ from the world until his skin itches and his hand _aches,_ his whole body aches. He can see eyes in the dark and hear rats in his dreams. Can see through walls and turn men to dust.

He wonders if it is worth it.

He can taste the sea. He hears whalesong.

He never wanted this.

He wonders when the last time was he had a choice. Coldridge, perhaps, where he clamped his mouth shut or _screamed_ , screamed and pleaded until his throat felt ready to split open and he couldn’t have said a word even if he wanted to.

Now, he has not the energy. He is tired, so, so tired. He aches to his very bones and the only thing that stops him lying down in the mud to die is Emily, _Emily,_ scared and alone and helpless.

He has failed one empress. He will not fail a second.

 

So he collects the runes, endures the judgement of the Loyalists. Of Martin, who looks at him like he would rather see him behind bars in the abbey. Of Pendleton, who looks at him and breathes not a word of the rumours, not a word of his birth, and in doing so says it all.

He accepts kindness in the small places he can find it – Samuel’s hand, helping him out of the boat after a particularly awful night in the city, or Cecilia’s small, shaking fingers as she attempts to stitch his worst cuts – but he does not expect it. He carves his way through the city in a trail of blood and plague and runesong, and deserves nothing but the death he so desires.

 

They send him to Lady Boyle with blood still drying on his sword, and they ask him if this is what he dreamed of, on those nights in Coldridge. Of splendour. Luxury. Nobles and their backstabbing and their games. They ask if this is what he wanted, but they do not wait for him to answer.

He sees Esma Boyle’s blood spatter on his clothes and blade, and hears her final, gasping surprise. He lets the rats consume her body and watches, a detached part of him horrified, until she is nothing but a splash of blood that will dry to a dark brown stain on the expensive rug. He thinks of the maid who will have to clean it up later, and wonders if she will miss her employer. Whether they will speak of this terrible accident and wonder how the rats got in, how nobody heard her dying screams. Rats are everywhere in this rotting city. They will not suspect him yet.

He did not want this. He wants only Emily.

 

When Corvo kills, it is a mercy. When he deigns not to, his victims are never heard from again.

The lord regent falls by his blade, his body turning to ash. The speakers in the city proclaim his crimes.

_Fascinating, my dear Corvo_ the Outsider says, and Corvo can taste blood and metal and _salt._ The Masked Assasin ravages the city, and Corvo returns to the Hound Pits every night¸ exhausted to his very core, hiding his bloodstained clothes from Emily.

Regardless she sees, smells the blood on his clothes and the murderous intent in his soul as her gentle hands braid through his hair and tug softly at his sleeve. He lives for her now, but it is never enough to keep her safe.

No matter how many he kills, it is not enough. He is betrayed, and Emily is ripped from his fingers. Revolution, rotation. Like clockwork. He should have seen it coming, should have been prepared, should never have trusted any of them. Havelock, Martin, Pendleton, even _Samuel,_ who sat him down in his boat and eyed his bloodstained clothes and radiated only sympathy. Corvo is tired, so, _so_ tired, and he just wants to sleep and he’s failed, again, put his trust in the wrong places. This time, he swears, it will not end with the death of another Empress.

 

Instead, it will end with fire in his veins. With Corvo washed up in the flooded district, and then with Daud kneeling before him, _begging._

It is pathetic, Corvo muses, and he wants to laugh. He does not.

When Corvo kills, it is a mercy.

He does not kill Daud.

 

He does not kill the guards at the Hound Pits Pub either, although he looks at Pierro, at Sokolov, and for a moment he is tempted. It would be so, so easy, he thinks. A press of a button and they would be ashes. He thinks of Lady Boyle, and the bloodstained carpet. He thinks of Hiram Burrows, of Daud, and wonders if Samuel’s hands shook as he laced his drink with poison. Press a button. _It would be so easy._

He does not. It is only Havelock’s blood he wants now.

 

Finally, finally it ends with a boat and a lighthouse and a little girl’s screams and Corvo wills his broken body to move, _move,_ one last time, and Emily screams and he blinks and she is there, _there_ and solid in his arms and she is sobbing, holding him.

‘Is it over?’ She asks.

‘It’s over.’ He croaks, imagining the blood on his hands soaking into her dirty white clothes as he holds her to him.

‘The others are dead, aren’t they?’ she asks. ‘That’s alright. I was going to have them killed anyway. I’m going to be _empress_.’

He says nothing, just holds her closer and tries to keep his breathing even. For Emily, as it has always been. Emily, who stands with blood on her collar and her cuffs, clinging to the sleeve of her Lord Protector, her bringer of death, as a regime crashes into the sea.

A fool, they had called him. An assassin. He does not know what is right. It does not matter. Now, Corvo tells himself, now, for a precious moment, it is _over._


End file.
